Development Spotlight: 30th Street Post Office

Brandywine Realty Trust completed a $252 million renovation of Philadelphia's 30th Street Main Post Office, converting the building into office space. Embarking on one of the largest historic rehabilitation projects in the nation, Brandywine modernized and retrofitted the building while maintaining its designation as a national historic site. Brandywine also built a $90 million parking garage to support the new office space, and serve future development.

Brandywine has negotiated a 20-year-lease with the General Services Administration on the building, which was modernized to support a work environment of nearly 5,000 federal employees. While much of the building was gutted and retrofitted with all new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems to support an office environment, every effort was made to preserve the historic value.

In addition to the rehabilitation of the historic Post Office building, Brandywine has also constructed a $90 million garage project known as Cira South, located across the street from the 30th Street Post Office. Cira South consists of a 1,662-car parking structure and 9,788 square feet of retail space, which was 93.2% leased at opening. The garage is positioned to allow for two future buildings which, depending on market conditions, could include Class A office towers, potentially with mixed use or hotel components.

The project is part of Brandywine Realty Trust's plan to reinvigorate the Market Street corridor, establish a gateway to University City and connect Philadelphia's financial and educational centers. The vision for this project is the creation of a first-class commercial corridor in University City that will adapt industrial buildings into new modern uses.

In redeveloping the 862,692-square-foot Art Deco style federal building, Brandywine embraced and rejuvenated its pre-Columbian art and architecture-inspired highlights. The Post Office's ornate public lobby, known as the "Historic Corridor", featuring two entry rotundas with mosaic domes in a Mayan motif, has been fully restored. The domes, each with 99,816 pieces of glass faience tiles in nine different shades of green and blue with 128 reflectors, have been refreshed to reveal their original brilliance. The marble walls, travertine flooring and wood ceiling were cleaned and brought back to their original brilliance; and the limestone exterior was pointed and cleaned.

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